Exploring Open-Ended Design Space of Mechatronic Systems

To realize design automation of mechatronic systems, there are two major issues to be dealt with: open-topology generation of mechatronic systems and simulation or analysis of those models. For the first issue, we exploit the strong topology exploration capability of genetic programming to create and evolve structures representing mechatronic systems. With the use of ERCs (ephemeral random constants) in genetic programming, we can evolve the sizing of mechatronic system components together with the system structures simultaneously. The second issue, simulation and analysis of those system models, is made more complex when the systems are mixed-energy-domain systems. We take advantage of bond graphs as a tool for multi- or mixed-domain modeling and simulation of mechatronic systems. Because there are many considerations in mechatronic system design that are not completely captured by a bond graph, it is beneficial to generate multiple solutions, allowing the designer more latitude in choosing a model to implement. The approach in this paper is capable of providing a variety of design choices to the designer for further analysis, comparison and trade-off study. The approach is shown to be efficient and effective and is demonstrated in an example of open-ended real-world mechatronic system design application, a typewriter re-design problem